"In a drastic move to hasten the end of the Vietnam war, the White House permits the use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy North Vietnamese tactical areas and to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as well as to strike fear into the Northern Communist leadership."

I've been experimenting with incorporating mushroom clouds into scenes.

This looks so cool in terms of fiction! (Not to offend anyone or Vietnam veterans , I thank them for their service by the way.) You might as well play the famous protest song by Barry McGuire: Eve of destruction, while you imagine what the world would be like if the cold war went hot!

I don't think the USSR and China (especially china who has nukes) would take kindly to someone setting a nuke off in a neighboring country who there helping out in a war and given there were probably Warsaw Pact and Chinese Military advisors on the Ho Chi Minh trail.